Day 12 – Home Styles and Hill Styles

July 15, 2013

Announcements Legislative Portfolio resources are posted.

You should know the state you are studying and the names of the representatives by the end of this week.

Midterm Exam Review is posted I will leave room to answer questions in class on

Tuesday and Wednesday Testable material will go through Tuesday’s class

(end of Chapter 5 in DOL)

Legislative Portfolio Resources Posted on Angel in the “Assignments” Folder

and in the “Links/Research” Folder. Start thinking about the three House members

you want to study. A great starting point is GovTrack.us which allows

you to see the shapes of the districts, the ideology scores of the legislators, and links you to OpenSecrets (Campaign Finance) and VoteSmart (Interest Group Ratings, recent statements, etc.)

There are a number of other excellent resources in the Word file that should give you a good head start.

Reading for Monday Read all of Chapter 5 in DOL DO NOT READ Fenno (1977) article

Hill Styles Who are the legislators? How do they compare to general population in terms of:

Education http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/06/12/us/across-the-board-growth-i

n-college-degrees.html?ref=education&_r=1&

Occupation How has this trend changed recently?

Race Gender Sexual Orientation Religion

What is the fastest-growing category in recent surveys? Age Tenure

How does Congress rank in terms of descriptive representation? What is collective representation?

Congressional Roles Legislator

Crafting, shaping, debating on laws. Shaped by norms and seniority

Constituency Servant Individual contact with members Procuring pork-barrel projects for entire

constituencies http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/immigration-deal

-would-boost-defense-manufacturers/2013/07/01/d1c115e4-df63-11e2-b2d4-ea6d8f477a01_story.html

“Byrd Droppings” - http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/04/us/how-do-west-virginians-spell-pork-it-s-b-y-r-d.html

Citizens Against Government Waste - http://cagw.org/

Partisan

“Constituency Servant” or “Partisan”? What does this graph suggest?

Source: Sides, “Gerrymandering is not what’s wrong with American politics”